Flowers, Champagne, and Amputation in "The Men Who Saved the World," a War Story by Edith Wharton

Parsons, Isabelle (2023). Flowers, Champagne, and Amputation in "The Men Who Saved the World," a War Story by Edith Wharton. Edith Wharton Review, 39(2) pp. 128–142.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5325/editwharrevi.39.2.0128

Abstract

This article examines a war story by Edith Wharton, entitled “The Men Who Saved the World.” Two corrected but undated typescripts of this incomplete and unpublished short story form part of the Edith Wharton Collection in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. Dating no earlier than July 1918, this multifaceted narrative is constructed around American participation in the Great War and anticipates an Allied victory. It simultaneously mirrors some of the concerns of Wharton’s other known short stories written around the tail end of the conflict when, for example, it casts a satirical eye over the volunteer efforts of privileged women. Perhaps most remarkably, “The Men Who Saved the World” reads like an experimental attempt—ultimately abandoned by Wharton—at confronting the traumatic effects of warfare through its explicit references to amputation as medical care at the front.

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